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Published: December 24th 2012
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So, last week, I completed my semester in Budapest at Corvinus University. I really enjoyed my teachers and the things I studied. I think that I can confidently state that I was correct in choosing History as my major and my field of study. I learned a lot about Hungarian culture and history, Eastern Europe, Architectural styles, and Hungarian language. But that was only what I learned in the classroom. I also believe that I have matured and have discovered myself to a certain extent. For this first time ever, I traveled alone in a new and alien place. I learned more about making friends and meeting new people. I learned how to navigate myself, how to plan (and how to not overplan), and how to travel efficiently. Much thanks to Lonely Planet! Unfortunately, I didn't start this blog back in September when I arrived in Budapest. I was able to travel to Prague, Serbia, Krakow, Paris, Bratislava, Transylvania, Pecs, Balaton, Sarajevo, and Vienna. I did most of this alone, and met so many amazing people. I had many awesome experiences, and it has really opened my eyes to the inherent goodness of people and the world. Maybe someday, I will
retroactively compile an account of these journies.
Anyways, enough backtracking. For the next few weeks I will be exploring more new places and will make an attempt to write and upload pictures periodically explaining what I have been up to. While I'm not the best at remembering specific names of things I see in cities, I will try to talk about what I do so that other readers can see what I have been up to and so that I can look back on this one day and remember one of the best adventures of my life. Obviously, as a college student, there is a good amount of partying to be done as well as sightseeing and I will include descriptions of partying as well as sightseeing, when appropriate. So, be prepared!
I left Budapest from Keleti Palyaudvar, the station where many of my journies have begun, on a 7 oclock night train with my pack, a few Soproni beers, and some chinese food from Tao, on Kalvin Ter. I book night trains because that way, I don't waste daytime, I don't have to book a hostel, and I sleep really well on trains! I met a really
Brasov
Notice the hollywood style Brasov thing on the hill
nice Romanian girl on the train and we chit chatted a bit. She was a beautiful 27 year old and had plenty of travel advice for me.
I arrived in Brasov Romania at about 9:45 with the plan of dropping off my pack somewhere for the day and exploring the city before taking a 3 hour train to Bucharest, the capital, for the night. Long story short, I couldn't find a place to leave my bag, so I explored the city with my pack on, which is quite exhausting. A beautiful old town in the mountains, Brasov is small and quite navigable with minimal tourism and lots of snow. It was freezing, but I made do. When I got there, I felt the farthest away from home that I have ever felt. So, after a quick call to my sister (always nice to hear a familiar voice), I took the bus into the old city. I peeked into a lot of small churches and one big Roman Catholic one on the square. Since it was Sunday, many of them were having services and it was really cool to see all of the people and hear the services
in Romanian. I wandered the streets and saw the christmas market, and grabbed some lunch in a little empty place. I ate beef pies and a nice summer salad for about 6 bucks, which is pretty good.
By this point I was tired of walking around with the pack, so I went back to the train station (last stop on the number 4 bus), and booked the 2:20pm train to Bucharest, where I had a hostel booked (thanks to Hostelworld). I napped on the train and woke up in a new city! Unfortunately, Umbrella Hostel wasn't in the book and i had some trouble getting oriented, but 2 metro stops later, near Piata Romana, I was at the hostel.
I was tempted to take the night off, skip dinner, and just get some sleep, but some cool Morrocans I met in my room convinced me to come out and get some drinks with them. We went to a bar 100 meters away from the hostel and met their friend David there. Beers were about 7 lei (3.33 is a dollar), so I grabbed 2 and then we left for town. The main historical district
is 2 stops away from the hostel on the metro, so we went there and grabbed some Kebabs before meeting up with 4 girls and one more guy who were friends of theres from Bucharest. Anyways, I won't bore you with the details of our drinking excapades so, long story short, we ended up in a little basement club that had a reggae night and beers (skor) for 5 lei. I danced with a cute girl from Bucharest for a little while, and the night kind of went by with more beers and a little absinthe, and before we knew it, it was 4am and time to go home. The trains don't run that late, so we walked the 2 stops home, grabbed some bread at a non-stop and munched down before sleep.
So, I woke up at around noon and got some meat and cheese for breakfast from the hostel and took off to explore the city. I'm not sure if I can insert pictures into the text, but I will put some below somewhere to see. Unfortunately, most of the museums were closed because it's the day before christmas, but all of the churches were
open and beautiful. I didn't bring the lonely planet with me, so I'm not positive exactly what was what and what the names of the churches and building were, but I think I still got a lot out of my wandering through the old town. I was struck by the combination of neo-classical and baroque architecture contrasting with Ceausceau's Communist architecture. It's interesting to me that 1989, the fall of Communism, was recent enough for people to still remember it, and for communism to be remembered. One of the pitctures I took is of an old beautiful church wedged between two ungly communist buildings. It's an interesting feeling. I also saw the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon). The Romanian Parliament building is absolutely massive.
I grabbed lunch at the Christmas market. Unfortunately, the sausage I ate sketched me out, so I'm waiting to see if I get sick from it. It may have been undercooked. We will see. The corn was much better.
So, after exploring, I took the metro to the Train Station, Garo de Nord, to plan the next leg of my trip. I have to get to Istanbul by the 27th
to meet my friend Julius, so to get there, I have to go through Bulgaria. I haven't heard great things about the capital, Sofia, and it's out of the way, so I decided to skip that and go to either Varna, on the Black Sea coast, or Teliko Varnova, a nice town in the mountains, close to lots of beautiful nature. Because of train times and planning, I chose to take the 12:30 train to Teliko Varnova, which should arrive at about 7pm, and I even get a couchette to nap on during my journey.
And, this basically brings me to now. I came back to the hostel and relaxed for a while. I met up with the Moroccans and we tried to grab some food from the store, but it was closed, so we came back to the hostel. I'm currently eating an apple, drinking Earl Grey, and talking religion.
So, with that, I sign out. Sándor is my Hungarian name, so on these journies, I will use that name, in honor and recognition of my amazing semester in Budapest. Fun fact: Sándor Petofi was the most famous historical Hungarian poet, who helped
to inspire the 1848 Hungarian revolution in which the Hungarians attempted to stand up against the Austrian Habsburg empire and gain their freedom. He inspired national pride. But, I digress!
Hoping for safe and succesful travels,
Sándor
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Sandor Alex
Alex Pike
Typo
I spelled journeys wrong. And probably some other things too, so disregard my typos please!!